Author: stlplace

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China Stocks

Crocs, Mindray and QDII

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The Crocs (CROX) stock is on a roll lately, as it’s closing 3rd quarter and holding two investor conference (link to webcast) in NYC and London. I added some more CROX last week when the escalator accidents is on the news. Another reason is I sold WX. I think both CROX and WX are good long term but I want to bet on “more sure” things.

Mindray (MR) has also done well lately. Incidently it’s also holding a conference in the US. At this time the fastest growth will from the US market. Chinese domestic market will also have some growth but the goverment still yet to roll out reforms in the health care (hospital) industry. Notheless I think (for the good or bad) Chinese patients still got to see doctors, so I’m not worried about MR’s prospect in China.

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Fun

Quiz when eating moon cake

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Copied from Zhuping’s blog:

一次，诺贝尔经济学获奖者数学家约翰·纳什参加一个数学年会，会间休息的时候，有人就给他出了一道数学题。有甲、乙两人分别从两个地点出发往中间走，这两个地点相距 20公里，甲、乙两人的速度都是每小时10公里。甲还带了一条狗，这条狗的速度是每小时30公里，它先是和甲一起出发向乙走，遇到乙后就折返向甲走，遇到甲后再折返向乙走，如此反复直到甲、乙在中间会合。现在问当甲、乙在中间会和时，狗走了多远。

Two people (guy A and guy B), who are 20 km away from each other, are walking toward each other, at 10 km per hour. There is a dog, which goes at 30 km per hour. She (the dog) started with the guy A first. Because she goes faster than A, so she will meet B on the way. When she meet the B, she will turn around to run toward A, and so on,…until A and B meet. The question is: how much distance did the dog take before A meet B?

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Fun

Starbucks to offer free iTune songs

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Accoring to Seattle PI: “Up to 1.5 million daily giveaways will begin Oct. 2 and run through Nov. 7 at more than 10,000 company-owned and licensed U.S. stores, Starbucks said. When the promotion ends, Starbucks expects to have given away more than 50 million songs.”

During the promotion, Starbucks will pick an artist each day and provide its customers with a complimentary download card that can be redeemed through the end of the year at the iTunes store. Some of the other artists are Joss Stone, Dave Matthews, Bebel Gilberto, Annie Lennox and Keith Urban.

Lombard declined to say how many cards would be available at each Starbucks store, but he said the company would “make sure every store has more than enough cards to provide to customers.”

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China

Expatriates in China

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Last Saturday when I was reading the Shanghai Business Review magazine in a Starbucks (Hongqiao Parkson), I was a little surprised to learn there are 570,000 foreign expatraites living or working in Shanghai. Hangzhou, the scenic city near Shanghai, has 8,000.

I remember in year 2003 or so, the ShanghaiExpat web site just got started by a guy. The site was very simple. Four years later, the site has grown up and last weekend there was an “Expat Exhibit” in the Shanghai Exhibit Center (I didn’t go there). Similarly, I was fascinated to read how Craig started NingboGuide.com:

Ningbo guide logo

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Stocks

Goldman Sachs failed Chinese test

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Week in review 09/16 to 09/22

0) Sept 22 is “no car day” in many Chinese cities. Individual car owners are encouraged to take public transportation. I saw some volunteers on Zhongshan park metro station.

1) According to China Capital week, 中文难倒高盛, Goldman Sachs senior executive, Malysian Chinese Richard Ong, failed the Chinese test administrated by CSRC. Because of that Mr. Ong can not take the top postion of Goldman China.

2) US federal reserve hikes interest rate by 50 points. Higher than many people expected. The more important question investor should ask: is Mr. Bernanke trying to rescue the market, or the economy?

3) You got the RMB, we got the IPOs. To contain the excessive liquidity in China, the CSRC recently approved the Haigui IPO of 3 big state owned companies: China construction bank, Sheng Hua Coal, and Petro China.

The reason people called it Haigui is, those stocks have been listed in Hongkong Stock Exchange for a while. Now they are returning to the Shanghai A share market, at a much higher price compared to the price listed in HK a few years ago.

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Fun Stocks

My investing journey III: 2004 to 2005

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After I got some moderate success on OPSW and GE in early 2004. I got a bit excited.

If I could use one word to summerize what I did my acitivies on stocks in those two years, it’s speculation. I did all kinds of speculations, luckily I did not get into really dangerous zone: margin, short and options. So my loss is still limited (a few thousand dollars each year). I did the following speculations:

1) Bet on earning: from PALM, Redhat (RHT), NetEase (NTES) to more speculative plays such as Look Smart (LOOK), the9 (NCTY), I never made a dime on betting ERs. The common scenario is I bought them right before the earning. The stock price already reflected best case scenario. Even if the company came out with a blow out (good) earning, there wouldn’t be much upside. But in reality 100% of time they did not beat the estimate by wide margin. So…I had to sell the stocks after earning to limit my loss.

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Stocks

Speculation day for Chinese stocks

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On Sept 20, 2007

ATV: up 20.10%

EFUT: up 49.92%

XFML: up 20.70%

It seems to me the domestic investors (or speculators to be precise) can not wait the Chinese goverment offically opens the H shares to domestic investors, they already came to the US 🙂

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China Fun

Kids, Crocs and Escalator

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First a little update about the Typhoon Wilpa. Shanghai did not take the direct hit, or use my now retired boss words “we dodged another bullet”, he was referring to his condo at Florida during Hurricane season. More importantly, Shanghai suffered minimal human loss because of comprehensive preparation before the storm. More than 290,000 people moved out of vulnerable area. Unlike in the past, human lives are more treasured in China nowadays compared to properties. How is this related to Crocs?

Well, recently there are lots of accicent reports regarding Crocs wearing kids got hurt taking escalators. I read an earlier report and wrote a post about it. But now it seems more and more parents are worrying about the “safety of crocs”. I think they are shooting at the wrong target. I believe the escalator safety is a problem we have ignored from time to time, and now with the kidding wearing Crocs, this problem becomes more obvious.

These days I got more oppertunities to ride escalators because I work at Cloud 9. There is a huge escalator which takes one from the 1st floor to 4th floor. When I took it the first time, I was a bit shaky, because of its height. I don’t have kids, but I think if I ever take my niece there, I will probablly hold her instead of let her ride on her own.

IMG_5405

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China Stocks

Wuxi Pharma Beijing Bank

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I sold Wuxi Pharma Tech (WX) this morning, at $28.81. Not surprisingly the stock continued up after I sold it. I bought it a month ago at $21.80 so I’m happy. The stock is a bit expensive at current price ($30), considering its PE (about 100), profit margin, and its 2007 est. revenue. Another thing to consider is competition. It’s definitely more difficult than open economy hotels (Home Inns, HMIN), but I think it’s still doable (exp. and connections with big pharmas in the west).

Separately, Beijing Bank did IPO today in Shanghai, under tick symbol 601169. It started at 23.00, went as high as 25, and closed at 22.68. At current price, its year 2007 PE is more than 50. Crazy!